3 opportunities that social media marketers don’t talk about

Published October 27, 2009 by Jo Jordan

We don’t want them to wear out the carpets

There is an old saying in business: we don’t want them to wear out the carpets. We want inquiries, but only from people who actually buy something. Here endeth the lesson on selling. We will sell far more to people who are genuinely interested and who have a means to pay.

Social media shock: we need to supply carpet for 200x our customers

And there beginneth the lesson on social media. Social media specialists, beginning with Google Alerts, concentrate our attention on the numbers.

How many people did we reach? (Hits)

Did they pay attention? (Time on the site)

Did we invoke curiosity? (Did they explore the site?)

Did we get them to take an action that shows interest & intent? (A goal in Google Alerts-speak)

Getting hits is hard and getting people to stay and explore is hard.

Conversion – taking the first step to a sale is even harder. It is shocking the first time we realize that 0.5% of people click on an advert. That is 1 out of 200 of people wearing out your digital carpets are actually looking for something to buy. And those 1 out of 200 don’t necessarily buy anything.

Maybe we need carpets for 1000x our customers!

Social media is advanced window shopping

Social media is advanced window shopping. Surf. It says it all. It’s like going to the mall with no money and no credit card. Well, people do. I don’t understand. I assume they have nothing else to do. Or maybe they have cunningly cut costs on the gym by doing their surfing on foot.

But to my point: marketers have brought their finely-tuned focus to the web. It’s great to have Google Alerts, to drive up our hits and get people to read and explore our content. It’s real cool when someone transforms from lurker to commentator and contacts you. It’s rip-roaring-fantastic when they suggest some collaborative action.

Thank you marketers. Because carpets are expensive we must try to get the people on them to buy something!

This is all a bit industrial age, isn’t it?

What marketers don’t seem to talk about is this: if the same people come day after day, and the same people look (very nice, welcome!), our business will never grow.

We can get more hits, and in theory as we move from 200 to 400, we should go from 1 enquiry per day to 2. Fine. Good prediction. Throw in some natural variability and some days we get none and others more than 2.

We can confirm all of this with some elementary high school statistics.

The point is that the underlying dynamics stay the same. Getting bigger to get richer is the thinking of the industrial age.

What marketers don’t tell us

Social media gives us three new opportunities.

1. Reach different people. Completely change the market.

2. Move up the value chain. Get a higher margin per hit.

3. Cut out the cost of replacing the carpets.

Come back tomorrow if you want more. See you then! The Welcome mat is out. I’ve still got carpets! At least for a while!